


pieces from my heart

by indecentexposed



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Fix-It, Forgiveness, Friendship, M/M, Realization, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indecentexposed/pseuds/indecentexposed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark gets drunk, watches the video of the depositions, and comes to some startling realizations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pieces from my heart

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted on LJ a long, long time ago. I'm finally getting around to reposting my work to AO3, beginning with _pieces from my heart_ and the newly-written coda, _paperweights._

Mark is not drunk.

Yet.

He’s on his way, though, because that’s the only way in hell he’s going to get through this. “This” being the stack of transcripts currently strewn all over his bed, and the stack of numbered DVDs sitting on the nightstand. He’s loaded the first one on his laptop, but Mark hasn’t quite worked up the nerve to actually play the video yet.

There’s a bottle of Jameson on the nightstand next to the DVDs. Mark has been drunk on Jameson exactly twice in his life: the night the lawsuit was filed ( _the_ lawsuit, the one that mattered—then and now, Mark could give a flying fuck about the Winklevosses), and the night the settlement was signed (ditto). _Symmetry,_ he’d told Dustin on that second occasion, while they sat in some hole-in-the-wall of a bar where no one would recognize Mark.

Dustin had nodded grimly, bought the drinks, carried Mark to the car three hours later, driven him home, sat up with him all night and stayed the next day through the worst hangover of Mark’s life.

Dustin is a good friend, Mark thinks, staring down at the transcript.

Eduardo was a good friend, too.

They hadn’t been friends anymore, not by that point, but nobody had bothered to correct Eduardo and Mark had clung silently to the words for days afterward. Weeks—months, even. They were a tacit promise, in his mind, that Eduardo was coming back. Eduardo was hurt and angry, but somewhere deep down they were still friends and eventually he would forgive Mark and come to California and everything would be the way it should have been in the first place.

It hadn’t worked out that way, of course. In the years since the settlement, Mark has been forced to acknowledge a series of increasingly unpleasant realities.

At one year, he’d been faced with the understanding that things would never be the same.

Two years: the possibility that he and Eduardo might never be friends again.

Three years: the sickening realization that Eduardo might never forgive him at all.

Five years in, Mark has pretty much accepted all of that, but he’s never quite let go of the hope that lingers around Eduardo’s continued interest in Facebook. Every time the quarterly shareholders’ meeting rolls around, Mark sets up e-mail alerts for exactly one name on the invite list; each time, though, he gets the same response: “Eduardo Saverin: Declined.”

A year ago, in a fit of optimism, Mark had purchased round-trip first-class tickets from Singapore to San Francisco and mailed them to Eduardo with a note (handwritten, which these days is one hell of a gesture, coming from Mark). The package had come back unopened.

Eduardo doesn’t even attend the meetings via Skype. It’s like he would actually rather review pages and pages of minutes (and copious notes in Chris’s meticulous handwriting) than subject himself to the possibility of seeing Mark’s face.

That is, until a week ago.

A week ago, Mark had spent a full ten minutes staring at the alert in his inbox (“Eduardo Saverin: Accepted”). Then he’d picked up the phone and instructed his assistant, Jess, to call Eduardo’s office and correct the mistake—only to have her call back a few minutes later with confirmation that Eduardo was indeed planning to attend, since it would be the last shareholders’ meeting before Facebook’s IPO in January.

That day, Mark had left the office early for the first time in over a year. He’d gone home to think things over and plan what he would say to Eduardo, but mostly he’d just succeeded in freaking out.

He’d continued to freak out right up until this morning, when the email arrived in his inbox.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Jess Andersen  
 **Subject** : Shareholders’ Meeting

Mark,

Mr. Saverin’s assistant just called to inform me that due to a last-minute schedule conflict, Mr. Saverin will be unable to attend tomorrow’s meeting. He sends his regrets.

Jess

Then, a minute later:

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Chris Hughes  
 **Subject** : I heard.

I’m sorry, Mark.

And, ten seconds after that:

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Dustin Moskovitz  
 **Subject** : :(

SORRY. :( :( :(

want to ditch work and get drunk?

The suspicion that the entire staff was giving him sympathetic looks through the glass of his office had proven intolerable, if not quite worse than the news of Eduardo’s last-minute cancellation. In the end, Mark had opted to go home early, though sans Dustin and sans getting drunk—right then, anyway.

He’d left the office without a word to anyone, called Legal from the car and demanded that copies of the deposition transcripts and videos be hand-delivered to his house immediately. They’d arrived on his doorstep shortly before noon. The best thing about being CEO, Mark thinks, is that people tend to do exactly as he asks (except Dustin), and nobody ever questions him (except Chris).

Mark is going over the transcripts and the tapes for the first time since the depositions because he is obviously missing something and he is grasping at straws, at this point. There might not be a way to bring Eduardo back even to the periphery of his life, and Mark thinks he can (maybe) live with that if he really, really has to, but he needs to understand _why._

If there’s a clue of any kind, anywhere, Mark suspects it’s somewhere in here: the complete visual, auditory and written record of the last time he and Eduardo looked each other in the eye. Mark’s sort of torn on the drinking because the alcohol is already sinking in around the edges, making him less exact, less attentive—but, as previously stated, it’s also the only thing that’s going to make this survivable.

Mark drains his glass, sucks in a deep breath, and presses Play.

*

“It was a great idea,” says Eduardo, on the screen, throwing a sidelong glance at Mark.

Five words, and the acknowledgment hits harder than millions of members and billions of dollars, a clear indication that Mark is nowhere near drunk enough. He pauses the video and takes a few long swigs straight from the bottle, because _who the hell cares._

Eduardo would care. Eduardo cares about things like politeness and germs and not being gross.

Eduardo is not here, though.

He is never fucking coming back, apparently.

Mark spits a little of the amber liquor back in the bottle, just for spite, and presses Play again.

“A billion dollars,” Eduardo says, not looking at Mark or Gretchen or Sy or anyone, and Mark knows he’s picturing it: those few heady, buzzed hours with Sean, the beginning of the end. “And that shut everybody up.”

It wasn’t about the money, Mark thinks.

It was never about money, for him.

It was all about Facebook.

But Eduardo had handed Mark a check for $18,000 the day after that huge fight about advertising and Sean and California and the chicken, so maybe it wasn’t really about money for Eduardo, either.

Mark remembers the look on Eduardo’s face while he flipped through the settlement agreement, reading carefully, initialing each page. He’d looked like he was being tortured. Mark had stared at him the whole time, trying to parse why Eduardo looked so unhappy when he was getting everything he’d asked for and then some: $600 million, 5 percent stock, his name restored to the masthead. All that, and still the best Eduardo could manage was abject misery?

It was definitely not about the money for Eduardo.

Mark is pretty sure it wasn’t about Facebook, either, is the thing.

What it was about doesn’t hit him until 5:58 A.M., in the middle of the last DVD. Mark is very, very drunk by this point, and the words _I was your only friend, you had one friend_ kind of make him want to throw something at the screen because they aren’t true, they were never true. Not at Harvard, not in Palo Alto, not ever. Mark had plenty of friends—and still does, even if he still is kind of an asshole, although not quite so much as the cocky, angry-eyed boy on the screen, not anymore.

Through the haze, it occurs to Mark that Eduardo knew it wasn’t true. Eduardo knew he wasn’t, had never been, Mark’s only friend.

Of course he knew. He was _there,_ after all.

But why would he say it, then?

Mark is really fucking drunk.

He thinks maybe Eduardo must have meant something else.

Something he couldn’t say, not in front of the lawyers and the cameras, not on the record or off it, not even to Mark.

Especially not to Mark.

It hits him like being shaken violently and punched in the stomach and stabbed through the heart, like every other stupid, cliché physical metaphor and then some, a million things flashing through his head at once: Eduardo tumbling through the door of the Kirkland suite, _I’m here for you._ Eduardo stretched out on Mark’s bed with a book while Mark coded for hours at a time. Eduardo, the night in the CS lab when they hired the interns, his smile brilliant and warm and all for Mark—only, ever, for Mark. Eduardo, always in his face about remembering to eat and getting enough sleep, even over the phone those first months in Palo Alto: _just, take care of yourself, Mark, okay?_ Eduardo, rain-soaked and angry, looking like he wanted nothing more than to throw Mark against the wall in that tiny, cramped hallway and—

On the screen, Eduardo turns away from the table to stare out the window. The camera captures a profile of his face, pale and drawn, the shadow of a dark circle under his too-bright eye. He swallows hard, and his chin trembles ever so slightly. He looks tired and sad and lost and strangely young and so, so hurt, but there’s no anger in his face.

The only thing Mark can see is love.

*

“Mark!”

Someone is yelling at him from very, very far away.

Disoriented and groggy, it takes Mark a full minute to register that the voice is actually coming from the direction of his living room, and that it has to belong to Chris or Dustin—no one else knows the code to bypass his house’s alarm system. It takes another couple of seconds for Mark’s eyes to focus enough to distinguish the glowing numbers on his alarm clock.

9:16 A.M.

Mark hears himself make a choked, horrified noise. The shareholders’ meeting starts at 10:00, and he was supposed to be at the Facebook offices an hour ago for a pre-meeting strategizing session with Chris.

“Mark?”

Chris, who is in Mark’s house right this very second.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Mark mutters, and the word sounds strange on his ears, but he doesn’t have time to think about it.

He sits straight up, and is about to throw the covers off when a wave of nausea and dizziness hits him so hard he has to lie right back down. Mark blinks a couple of times, experimentally, but if anything the blurriness of his vision gets worse. His head is beginning to throb, his hearing is sort of fuzzy, and everything feels slow and thick, like he’s underwater or behind glass or—

Oh, god.

He’s still drunk.

Really, really drunk.

“Mark!” Again, sharper, from what sounds like the hallway this time. Chris sounds more worried than angry, but that’s going to change in a hurry as soon as he figures out that Mark is alive and unharmed. In a manner of speaking.

Mark actually contemplates hiding under the bed, except that he’s pretty sure he will be violently sick if he tries to move at all, let alone quickly—so there’s really nothing for it but to lie still, comforting himself with the knowledge that death-by-Chris is probably going to be a lot faster and less messy than alcohol poisoning.

Because, really, Chris is going to _kill_ him.

And Eduardo—

 _Eduardo’s not coming,_ Mark reminds himself, and for an instant his whole body goes loose with relief, but then he realizes he’s still surrounded by pages and pages of transcripts, remembers watching the videos, remembers—

The bedroom door swings open, Chris is there, and Mark suddenly understands the expression “towering rage” with complete and vivid clarity.

Three months ago, Chris had abruptly announced he was moving back to California. Mark, for reasons he’s having a really hard time remembering right now, had immediately offered to re-appoint him head of PR. Chris had accepted, although he’d warned Mark that he probably wouldn’t stay at Facebook in the long-term: a year, maybe two.

 _Then why did you move back here,_ Mark had grumbled, but Chris had just shrugged mysteriously, said _Politics are all over, I can do that work anywhere,_ and completely evaded all further questions on the subject.

“Mark, do you want to explain to me what the hell you’re still doing in _bed_ when you and I were supposed to be meeting forty-five minutes—”

Chris cuts off abruptly to take in the scene, eyes widening when they land on the stack of transcripts and the pile of DVDs, narrowing when they note the nearly-empty Jameson bottle, and turning dangerous when they land back on Mark, who promptly rolls over on his stomach, hides his face in the pillow and pulls the covers up over himself.

“I can still see you,” he hears Chris say darkly, and then there are footsteps, and the mattress sinks down under Chris’s weight. “Mark, why do you have all this stuff? What happened?”

Mark is too drunk for pretense, or equivocation, or anything but the truth.

“He loved me,” he says miserably, into the pillow.

“I can’t hear you.”

It’s an effort, but Mark manages to turn his head enough that the pillow isn’t blocking his mouth.

“I think Wardo loved me,” he says again, hoarse and scraped.

There’s a long, long silence. Mark tries to remember the last time anyone shocked Chris into shutting up completely, and comes up empty. It’s possible that this has never happened. Mark makes a mental note to take pride in it when he’s not occupied with actively wanting to die.

Then: “Jesus fucking Christ,” Chris says, and Mark sort of instinctively braces himself. When he dares to glance up, Chris’s expression looks like it can’t quite decide where it’s going, but his blue eyes are bright with anger.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?”

“Please stop yelling,” Mark suggests piteously.

“I’m not yelling,” Chris snaps, getting to his feet, “but I’m going to start in about ten seconds if you don’t get out of that bed, get in the shower and get ready for the extremely important meeting we’re supposed to be attending in less than an hour. God, Mark, you seriously couldn’t have picked some other night in the past, I don’t know, _five years_ to figure this out?”

Mark tries to put this together and can’t. Not even a little bit. Chris just rolls his eyes, stomps over to the door, and flicks the lights on without warning.

“Fuck me,” Mark hisses, yanking the blankets up over his face again.

“Not even if you actually paid me the astronomically high salary I so richly deserve for putting up with this shit,” Chris says flatly, dragging the covers back down. “Get up.”

“No,” says Mark, pointlessly.

“Mark Zuckerberg, if you do not get up and get your shit together immediately, so help me, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

Mark manages to drag himself into a sitting position, though his stomach lurches dangerously and his vision swims. Chris goes on glaring while he pulls out his cell phone and puts it to his ear.

“Dustin,” he says into the phone, after a minute, “I need you.”

This is when Mark decides he has had some sort of transformative experience over the course of the night, because all of a sudden he is _seeing things_ and _hearing things_ which do not compute in any way, shape or form. The inflection in Chris’s tone, for example, when he says those words. The way everything about him seems to relax the slightest bit when Dustin answers. The hint of a smile that tugs at Chris’s mouth when Dustin says something Mark can’t hear.

“What—” Mark begins, but shuts up in a hurry when Chris shoots him a murderous look before storming out of the room and closing the door behind him. Mark can hear snatches of conversation in the hall, but he can’t pick out the words.

He’ll ask Dustin about it later, he decides. Dustin threatens Mark with bodily harm on a much less frequent basis than Chris, and he usually means it a whole lot less. Dustin is generally just _nicer,_ Mark thinks grumpily, glaring at Chris as he comes back through the door.

Chris just glowers back at him. “Dustin will be here in a minute. He’s going to make sure you get to the office something resembling on time while I deal with opening the meeting. Which is going to be a clusterfuck, by the way, since you decided to get hammered instead of showing up for our planning session.”

Mark cannot envision leaving his room, let alone getting dressed, going to the office and sitting through a six-hour meeting. He groans and squeezes his eyes shut. “Can’t you just tell everyone I have food poisoning?”

“No, I can’t. Not this time, not with the IPO next month. Besides, everyone got the list of attendees, Mark. Everyone knows that Eduardo was supposed to be there. How do you think it’s going to look if neither one of you shows up?”

Truthfully, Mark doesn’t give a single fuck how it’s going to look, but he decides he’d rather go on living beyond the next ten seconds than have the satisfaction of saying so.

“I’ll tell everyone you’re not feeling well, and that’s why you’re running late,” Chris goes on, and Mark can see him thinking it through, covering bases, sorting out potentialities. Even pissed off, Mark thinks grudgingly, Chris is really fucking good at his job. “We’ll do the best we can once you get there. And by we, I mean ‘I,’ because absolutely the only thing you are going to be doing in that meeting is sitting still and trying not to breathe on anyone, do you understand me?”

Mark nods, then sort of ruins it by belching loudly. Chris raises his eyes to the ceiling.

“Okay, I’m here,” Dustin says, appearing in the doorway. “What have we got?”

“That,” Chris says distastefully, gesturing vaguely at Mark.

“CEO with a hangover, huh?” Dustin tosses Mark a conspiratorial wink.

“Still drunk,” Mark corrects him, pleased that somebody in the room is not turning lights on or cursing at him.

“Mark,” says Chris, ignoring the snort of laughter Dustin doesn’t even bother trying to suppress, “you’re an idiot.”

Mark’s pretty sure this is not strictly true in the conventional sense, but he knows better than to say so as long as Chris is making that face, so he just nods. If Chris claimed that the earth was flat, the whole of humanity was descended from a hippopotamus, and Google Plus’s user interface was more intuitive than Facebook’s, right this second, Mark would totally agree with him.

Well, maybe not on that last one.

“Chris,” Dustin says, just the slightest hint of chiding in his tone, and Mark watches with interest because this is, well, _new._ “What do you need me to do?”

“Can you take over? Mark needs to be at the shareholders’ meeting as soon as he’s fit for human consumption, and I need to be at the office explaining to the shareholders why their CEO picked last night to go on a binge-drinking bender and have an epiphany.”

“Got it, but try to not actually use those words, okay?” Dustin squeezes Chris’s arm, lingers. Chris leans into the touch, and Mark watches them have what looks like an entire conversation with their eyes before Chris nods, and then goes.

Mark doesn’t get a chance to ask Dustin what that’s about, though, because as soon as Chris is gone Dustin has Mark by the arm and is tugging him up from the bed. “Come on,” he says cheerfully, sliding an arm around Mark’s waist when he stumbles, unsteady on his feet. “We need to get you showered.”

“What are you going to be doing?” Mark grumbles, because showering involves both standing up and being somewhere other than his bed, which means it is arguably the worst idea Dustin has ever had. Including the Poke feature.

“Sitting outside the door listening to make sure you don’t fall in the shower and die,” Dustin says practically. “Also, finding you something to wear that doesn’t look like you stole it from a homeless person.”

“I like this shirt,” Mark says petulantly.

“I like it too,” Dustin assures him, “when it isn’t covered in liquor stains and drool.”

“You’re a really good friend, Dustin. I was thinking that last night.”

“Sounds like you had a hell of a night.” Dustin attempts to steer Mark in the direction of the bathroom. “You’ll definitely have to fill me in on the rest of your little Jameson-induced vision quest later, okay?”

“Dustin?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you always so nice to me?” Mark cocks his head thoughtfully. “I’m kind of an asshole.”

Dustin looks sideways at Mark, considers this for a second, then shrugs. “Because I love you,” he says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“You do? Really?”

“Really really.”

“I guess someone has to,” Mark says, feeling morose all of a sudden. “Wardo did, I think, but now I think he hates me.”

“Mark, hey.” Dustin’s arm tightens around him just the slightest bit. “No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t hate you, okay?”

Mark ignores this, because in leaning against Dustin, he’s picked up on something out of place, and now he frowns in confusion. “You smell weird.”

Dustin laughs. “Look who’s talking.”

“No,” Mark insists, burying his nose in Dustin’s shoulder, trying to place the scent. It’s really familiar and conjures up a vague sense of annoyance, like he’s spent time trying to—

Trying to clear it out of his office every time Chris leaves.

“You smell like _Chris,”_ Mark says, too pleased with himself for having figured it out to bother with noticing Dustin’s reaction. “That Burberry shit he’s always wearing.”

“And you smell like somebody’s drunk uncle,” Dustin informs him. “Please get in the shower.”

Mark is too drunk to persist, and suddenly despondent again. “Chris hates me, too.”

“Only a little, and only sometimes.” Dustin pushes him gently through the bathroom door. “You should probably give him a raise.”

*

Mark had fumbles his way through a shower, needs help to button his shirt, and goes through half a bottle of mouthwash with Dustin standing over his shoulder, critically sniffing Mark’s breath after each wash and finally shaking his head on defeat. His last-ditch effort is to douse Mark with an unopened bottle of cologne they find in Mark’s medicine cabinet, after which Dustin waits a beat, then takes a cautious whiff.

“Better?” Mark asks hopefully, but Dustin wrinkles his nose.

“Where the hell did you get that cologne? Now you smell like a drunk male prostitute.”

“Is that worse than just drunk?” Mark inquires, considering it.

“Depends on your point of view, I guess.”

“I don’t think I’d make a very good prostitute.”

“I’m not going to touch that one.” Dustin shakes his head helplessly. “Do me a favor and try not to talk too much in the meeting, okay?”

They get to the Facebook offices just after 11:00, by which point Mark completely understands why most people prefer to be passed out for the end stages of drunkenness. His head is pounding, he’s dizzy and sweaty and exhausted, colors and sounds keep shifting in weird ways, and Dustin has to pull over twice on the way to the office so Mark can get out of the car and throw up. Mark is pretty sure the bright lights and busy hum of the office are, with one notable exception, the worst things ever to happen to him.

When they get in the building, Dustin texts Chris, who meets them in one of the smaller conference rooms. Chris is strangely nice, which would normally be enough to clue Mark in that something is not right, but Mark’s sort of preoccupied with trying not to throw up all over the conference table at the moment.

“You actually don’t look too bad,” Chris comments, assessing Mark as they sit down.

“You, on the other hand, look like shit,” Dustin notes, staring at Chris. “What’s wrong?”

Chris ignores him, directing his words at Mark. “If I didn’t know you’d crawled out of a bottle of cheap whiskey this morning, I don’t think I’d—well, I might guess, but I could buy that you’re just sick. How do you feel?”

“Like shit.” Mark massages his temples, which helps basically not at all. “How’s the meeting?”

“Off to a relatively smooth start, thank you for asking, but there’s something—”

“What did you tell them?”

“I said you weren’t feeling well and advised everyone to steer clear of you in case it’s contagious.” Chris leans in and sniffs the air gingerly. “Which I guess is good, because if anyone gets too close they’re going to want to take you to an AA meeting.”

This with an accusatory glance at Dustin, who just shrugs. “Not a lot I can do about the fact that alcohol is basically coming out of his pores, Chris. You want to tell us what’s going on?”

Chris bites his lip, and Mark’s stomach twists in a new way. “Chris?”

“All right, look.” Chris leans forward, looks Mark in the eye. “I realize you had a rough night, it brought a lot of shit up for you and you feel like hell on top of everything, but there’s not a lot I can do right now so I really, really need you to handle this.”

“Oh, Jesus,” says Dustin, apparently having figured out whatever it is Mark is supposed to handle.

“Chris.” There is, like, _buzzing_ in Mark’s ears. “Handle what?”

“Eduardo’s here,” Chris says, and everything sort of grinds to a halt.

Mark can’t process it, can’t translate the words to reality.

“No,” he says slowly. “No, he isn’t. He cancelled. He’s not coming.”

“He changed his mind and caught a last-minute flight. His assistant e-mailed me early this morning, but by the time I got back to the office and saw it...” Chris shrugs helplessly. “Anyway, he’s here.”

“Has he—did you—?” Mark hesitates, not sure what he wants to ask, not sure if he wants to know. “How is he?”

“I talked to him for a few minutes right when he got here. He’s—well, he’s jet-lagged, mostly. A little nervous. I think he’s as freaked out about seeing you as you are about seeing him.”

“I doubt that,” Dustin interjects. “Chris, do we really have to do this to him?” This with a gesture at Mark, who is unreasonably grateful for the sentiment.

Chris sighs. “I wasn’t wild about them being in a room together even with the assumption that Mark would be stone-cold sober, but I don’t think we really have a choice at this point. If it were anything other than the pre-IPO meeting, maybe, but under the circumstances… Mark’s a founder, he’s CEO, and he has the biggest stake in the company. He needs to be there.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Mark says, honestly.

“As Vice President in charge of Covering Ass and Fixing Shit, I’m telling you that you have to,” Chris says, not unkindly, and Mark manages a weak smile at their old joke. “For what it’s worth, though? As your friend, I wish you didn’t. As your friend, I wish you could go home, sleep this off, and see Eduardo when you’re really ready. Just—that’s not an option that we have, okay?”

“Okay,” Mark agrees, although it isn’t.

“Okay,” Chris echoes, getting to his feet. “Let’s go. I told them I had to brief you on the first hour, but we need to get you in there before people start wondering.”

“Hang in there,” Dustin says in an undertone, squeezing Mark’s shoulder as they follow Chris out into the hall. “We’ll get through it, okay?”

Mark is not so sure. “How do you know?”

“Because we don’t really have a choice,” Dustin says practically, as Chris swings the door of the conference room open.

“Dustin?” Mark is suddenly trying very, very hard not to panic. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Sit still, don’t talk unless you have to, and try not to stare at Wardo.” Dustin manages to crack a grin. “And like we always tell the interns: if you have to puke, go outside.”

*

Sitting still is not an issue.

Ditto not talking.

Ditto not puking, even, which is sort of a surprise.

Not staring at Eduardo, though?

That is seriously turning out to be a problem.

Mark sort of can’t believe that after five years, Eduardo is actually sitting less than twenty feet away from him. He keeps stealing glances, just to reassure himself that Eduardo is actually here and is not going to disappear again, at least not right away. The thing is, though—the thing is, even once Mark’s basically convinced that Eduardo is here in the flesh, not a figment of their collective imagination and not planning to evaporate into thin air any time soon, Mark still can’t seem to stop looking at him.

Eduardo is not exactly difficult to look at, to be fair.

He’s always been sort of stupidly attractive.

It’s not that Mark never noticed, before. He is maybe a little bit oblivious some of the time—a lot of the time, even, but he is not _blind._ It was just that he noticed in the way you notice the beauty of a painting after you’ve bought it and it’s been hanging on your wall for a while. He noticed in the off-handed way that you do when you take something for granted, because it’s always going to be there. He noticed from a place that was certain, and more possessive than he’d like to admit, even now.

After the past five years, though, and particularly after last night, Mark is pretty sure he’ll never take Eduardo’s presence for granted again. Not even if he were to see him every day for the rest of his life.

Which doesn’t sound half bad, actually, but Mark thinks he should maybe rein in those thoughts until they actually have a conversation.

It’s a weird juxtaposition: Eduardo’s expressions and mannerisms are impossibly familiar. His straight posture, the line of his jaw, the way his hair falls across his forehead, even the stretch of a tailored jacket over his shoulders—Mark memorized these things years ago without ever realizing it, and it feels too intimate now, like he shouldn’t recognize these things in someone who is essentially a stranger.

He has no idea what’s going on in Eduardo’s head, is the thing. He doesn’t know how Eduardo feels about being here, about seeing him, and he can’t begin to guess at the thought process that led to Eduardo’s decision to attend the meeting after all. Mark generally doesn’t spend a whole lot of time obsessing over other people’s feelings and motivations, but he finds himself wanting to know these things. He wants to know everything, really—every single detail of what Eduardo’s done and where he’s gone and what he’s thought about for the past five years. There is not a lot Mark wouldn’t give to have Eduardo talk to him, to sit back and just listen.

Admittedly, he’s hoping they can hold off on that until he’s sober, which he is still not, although the drunkenness is slowly beginning to fade into a truly fucking horrific hangover.

In the meantime, Mark is busy noticing every smile, every grimace, every knit of Eduardo’s brow, every absent motion—a flick of the wrist, a stretch of the fingers, a shift in his seat. He stares so hard that Dustin finally kicks him lightly under the table, and Mark snaps out of it enough to look away, to try to look like he’s paying attention to whatever it is that Chris is saying.

When they break for lunch, Eduardo disappears through the glass doors immediately, cell phone pressed to his ear. Mark doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” he asks Dustin, a little anxiously.

“He’ll come back,” Dustin says, sounding certain but also sort of anxious, for reasons Mark is too tired and sick-feeling to possibly guess.

“Are you sure?” he asks instead.

“Positive.”

“Why?”

“Because as soon as you stopped looking at him, he started looking at you.”

*

Dustin is totally right, as it turns out. Eduardo doesn’t _stare,_ not the way Mark keeps catching himself doing, but when Mark is not staring, Eduardo glances. He doesn’t linger, but he is definitely looking.

Like, a lot.

Mark watches from the very edge of his peripheral vision, tuned in to the conversation just enough that he could come up with a passably intelligent response if he had to, but it’s a fraction of his attention ( _the minimum amount,_ he thinks wryly, remembering). The rest is focused squarely on Eduardo, despite the fact that Mark cannot actually look directly at him, because the second he does that Eduardo will look away, will break the tenuous connection between them.

A message notification pops up in the bottom corner of Mark’s laptop screen, and he reluctantly looks down, opening his email client and quickly clicking through to his inbox.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Dustin Moskovitz  
 **Subject** : exhibitionist

people are watching you two eyefuck each other.

Mark makes a choked-off noise that’s sort of embarrassingly high-pitched, and Dustin is only about halfway successful in suppressing a snort, causing several glances in their direction and more than a few raised eyebrows. Chris looks daggers at both of them, but Mark’s too busy noticing Eduardo’s reaction, which is to glance quickly between Mark and Dustin before he clicks on his own screen and begins to type.

Ten seconds later, there’s another new message in Mark’s inbox.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **Subject** : ?

Care to fill me in on the joke?

Dustin glances over Mark’s shoulder and his eyes go wide, but Mark is already typing, because he knows that if he thinks about this too hard he won’t be able to formulate a response at all.

 **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : RE: ?

dustin says we’re eyefucking.

This time it’s Eduardo’s turn to splutter, which earns him an angry look from Chris, but his fingers are already flying over the keys.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **Subject** : RE: ?

Extremely sorry I asked.

 _No, you’re not,_ Mark thinks.

 **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : RE: ?

no, you’re not.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **Subject** : RE: ?

We’re not even looking at each other.

 **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : RE: ?

you seriously want to argue the semantics of eyefucking?

Dustin, still reading over Mark’s shoulder, laughs and tries unsuccessfully to cover it up with a cough. Chris looks like he’s seriously contemplating the ethics of strangling co-workers, but Mark could frankly care less because he can’t help glancing at Eduardo to catch his reaction, and that’s when he sees it: the tiny upturn of Eduardo’s mouth. The faintest hint of a smile.

Dustin sees it too, and Mark watches in unmitigated delight as he catches Eduardo’s eye and pulls a completely ridiculous face. Eduardo looks away quickly, but Mark doesn’t miss the bitten-off grin, the tiny shake of his shoulders. There’s a short video playing on the projection screen, which gives Chris the opportunity to glare furiously at all three of them, then pull out his phone and dash off a quick e-mail.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Chris Hughes  
 **Subject** : I am going to kill you all.

I’m glad this is apparently turning out to be less painful than any of us expected, but could you please hold your shit until I’m finished ensuring the direction of our billion-dollar company?

Dustin shrugs apologetically and mouths _sorry_ at Chris, who just rolls his eyes. Mark is not sorry in the least, not that he would be saying so even if he were. He’s too busy watching Eduardo, whose mouth twitches ever so slightly as he scans the e-mail, and that’s all the encouragement Mark needs. He opens up a new message before he can second-guess himself.

 **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : can we talk?

?

He hovers over the Send button for just a second, clicks it, and holds his breath.

Eduardo reads the message, and Mark watches him suck in a slow breath, bite his lip.

After a minute that feels longer than the whole of the past five years, Eduardo begins to type, slower now than before.

Backspaces, begins again.

And again.

Stops typing, fingers stilling over the keys, uncertainty all over his face.

He looks a lot younger, all of a sudden.

Mark sighs, and opens another message.

 **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : it’s a simple question, wardo.

it’s ok if the answer is no.

Mark can’t decide if that’s entirely true or not, but it must have been the right thing to say, because Eduardo’s expression seems to relax when he reads it. He hesitates for just a beat, then begins to type, and Mark can’t do anything but sit there and hope.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **Subject** : (no subject)

I have another meeting after this. Late dinner? 8?

 **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : ok

there’s a restaurant called pampas on the corner of palm & alma. meet there?

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **Subject** : I have two conditions.

1\. Sober up.  
2\. I never want to hear the word “eyefucking” again.

Mark bites his lip hard to keep back a laugh and looks up to see Eduardo gazing right back at him, meeting his eyes for the first time all day.

The first time in five years, really.

He’s smiling.

*

Mark is freaking out.

The shareholders’ meeting had ended at 4:00. Eduardo had left almost immediately after, though he’d stopped long enough to exchange a few quiet words with Chris, let Dustin pull him into an enthusiastic hug, and offer a tentative smile and “see you later” to Mark—who has been in his office ever since, attempting to distract himself with work and failing spectacularly.

It’s nearly 7:30 and Mark needs to leave soon, which is problematic because, while he has more feelings than he knows what to do with, he does not have a single fucking clue what he’s going to do or say when he sits down across the table from Eduardo a scant half-hour from now.

“Hey,” Chris says, coming in the open door. “How’s the hangover?”

“Gone, mostly.” Mark has been religiously drinking water and popping Tylenol all afternoon, as well as stoically sipping the vile-looking liquid concoction one of the interns offered him. While the supposed “miracle hangover cure” has proven to taste even worse than it looks, and raises the question of why the interns are stocking the office fridge with hangover remedies, Mark is admittedly feeling a lot better. “How’s the post-meeting carnage?”

“Not so bad, considering you were incapacitated and Dustin was acting like a preschooler with a sugar high,” Chris says, but he doesn’t even bother trying to mask the affection in his voice when he says Dustin’s name. Mark looks at him in amazement and takes a moment to process this, because apparently certain developments were not, in fact, a figment of his intoxicated imagination.

“Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you really come back?”

Chris stares at him, and for a second Mark thinks he’s going to get evasive again, but then Chris’s face goes sort of, like, _soft,_ and he just shrugs. “I came back because what I wanted was here.”

“He would have moved to New York for you,” Mark says, pretty sure Dustin would have, pretty sure that Dustin would do anything for Chris—in fact, Mark is pretty sure that this has always been true, now that he thinks about it. He’s less sure why it took them so long to get it together, but Mark supposes he is not one to talk.

“I know.” Chris looks Mark in the eye. “The thing is, Mark, when someone loves you so much, they would do absolutely anything you asked—sometimes the best way to love them back is not to ask.”

Mark shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Gets the sense that they are maybe not just talking about Dustin. Thinks about the relief in Eduardo’s eyes when Mark had said, _it’s ok if the answer is no._ Tries to remember a time when Eduardo refused him anything, and can’t. _Forgiveness, maybe,_ he thinks, but that probably doesn’t count: if the other person stops giving because they have to. Because there’s nothing left.

Chris is still watching him steadily. “In a similar vein, when you’re loved by someone who would never think to ask you for anything, loving them back means you learn to give them what they need anyway.”

“Is this an object lesson?” Mark asks, thinking about what Eduardo might need.

“Call it a suggestion. I do actually want you to be happy.” Chris sighs, but Mark doesn’t miss the sincerity in his tone, or the affection. “You know, in the brief downtime between periods of wanting to kill you.”

“I’m sorry about this morning,” Mark tells him, meaning it.

“Don’t worry about it.” Chris flashes him a grin, getting to his feet and straightening his tie. “Working for you is good exercise for my not-inconsiderable talents. It keeps me on my toes, and that’s—”

“Where are you going?” Mark interrupts, frowning as Chris starts for the door.

“It’s been a long day.” Chris’s tone is tinged with amusement. “I’m going home. To bed, hopefully to Dustin, and hopefully in that order.”

“You realize my brain might never recover from that mental image.” Mark glares at him. “Also, we weren’t done talking.”

“Mark, we both know I’m not the person you need to be talking to.”

“I’ll give you a raise,” Mark tries, but Chris just shakes his head. “After today, you’d better be doing that anyway. Go meet him, okay? See what happens.”

“I don’t know what to say to him,” Mark protests helplessly.

Chris turns in the doorway and studies Mark, his expression searching.

“Yeah, you do,” he says after a moment, quietly, and closes the door without waiting for a reply.

*

Chris is right, as it turns out. Mark knows what to say, and it only takes about ten minutes for him to begin to say it, after he and Eduardo have been seated and ordered drinks and struggled through some stilted small talk punctuated with long pauses, although Eduardo nearly gets there first.

“Mark,” he begins, just as Mark is saying “Wardo,” and they both stop and look at each other.

“You first,” Eduardo says after a beat, which Mark supposes is fair, all things considered.

“I’m sorry,” he says, although the words feel tired and too small, but they get him started and after that the rest comes tumbling out. “I’m sorry for the dilution, I handled it all wrong and I hurt you and I know that, but I—it’s not just that. I’m sorry about Sean, and California, I’m sorry I didn’t show up at the airport and I never paid enough attention and I never said—Wardo, I’m sorry I didn’t _listen.”_

In the silence that follows, Mark realizes he is expecting a lot of things.

He expects Eduardo to be angry, or sad, or both. He expects Eduardo to say things that are honest but hurt terribly to hear. He expects to be forgiven—maybe, he’s not so sure if that will happen, and he is not at all sure what it would mean if it did. Some part of him expects Eduardo to say that it’s great that Mark is sorry and all, it’s good to (finally) hear the words, but it’s not enough because nothing ever really will be, and this is all beyond repair.

He does not expect Eduardo to say what he actually says, which is this:

“I’m sorry, too.”

Mark blinks.

“I did a lot of things wrong, too,” Eduardo reminds him, leaning forward ever so slightly to look in Mark’s eyes. “I lost my temper, and I did the worst thing to you that I could think of doing, instead of trying to work things out. I wouldn’t hear you when we disagreed, I wasn’t in your corner when I should have been, and I…” He hesitates, gets this look in his eyes, and Mark knows what’s coming: “I wasn’t there. You needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

It’s too much to take in, let alone process. Mark shakes his head, trying to clear it, but the stinging at the back of his throat and the tightness in his chest are making it sort of hard to concentrate.

 _I still need you,_ he thinks, but he can’t say that, god only knows how Eduardo would react to that.

“I tried to—” he begins, but the words get stuck.

“You tried to tell me. I know.” Eduardo sighs. “I thought you were full of shit. I thought—”

“You thought I was using you,” Mark says, because even though he’s known this for a long time, it’s still not any easier to hear the words and it’s at least slightly less awful just to say them himself.

“Can you see how I might have gotten that impression?” Mark nods, and Eduardo bites his lip. “I didn’t want to give in about California because it felt like that was all I ever did. I would give and give and give, and you never—I thought if I moved out here, it would just be— I tried to tell you things, too, Mark. A lot of things.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark says again, remembering the video, wondering what Eduardo might have been trying to tell him—might have told him, even, if he’d been listening.

“You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

“I don’t know what else to say.”

“You were a kid, Mark, we both were. We both thought we knew everything.” Eduardo runs his fingers lightly through his hair and despite the gravity of the moment Mark is struck again, hard, by how beautiful he is. It feels like a weird thing to think about a man, but there’s really no other word for Eduardo—more now, even, than before.

“I forgive you,” Eduardo says, and Mark abruptly snaps back to the present—because this time, he thinks, he is going to listen. “Okay?”

Mark wants it to be okay. He wants it so much—for it to be okay, and for Eduardo to forgive him, and for them to begin to move on and maybe even figure out how to be _Mark and Eduardo_ again. He wants those words to be true maybe more than he has ever wanted anything in his life, but he thinks about Chris and giving and needs, and he looks at Eduardo and knows he has to make sure that these are the things Eduardo wants, too. He has to ask the thing he doesn’t want to ask, because if Eduardo is going to forgive Mark, it has to be on his own terms.

“Is it?” Mark says, and Eduardo’s head jerks up in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is it really okay?” Mark watches his face carefully. “Are you sure?”

Eduardo looks like he’s not quite certain what to do with the question. “Why are you asking?”

“Because,” says Mark, wishing he had half Chris’s skill with putting words together, “you shouldn’t forgive me because that’s what you think I want. It should be—if you’re going to do it, it should be because it’s what you want.”

This, apparently, is the right thing to say. Mark can tell because Eduardo smiles at him for the first time since the meeting, _really_ smiles, and it kind of takes his breath away.

“Mark,” he says, and there’s a new warmth to his tone, almost a gentleness, “why do you think it took me so long to come back?”

“Tell me.” There are limits, Mark thinks, to how much insight can be expected of him in one night.

“I knew that if I saw you, I wouldn’t—well, I had to be sure, first. That I wanted to forgive you.”

“It took you _five years_ to figure that out?”

The words are out of his mouth before Mark can stop them, and he’s sort of horrified, but Eduardo just stares at him for a second and then throws his head back and laughs, out loud, which is maybe the best thing ever.

“There were other things,” he tells Mark, when he stops laughing. “It wasn’t just—look, I’m here now. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mark agrees, because Eduardo _is_ here, talking to Mark again and beginning to smile and laugh like he used to, like Mark hasn’t seem him do in so long, and truthfully that makes everything else seem sort of peripheral, anyway.

*

They talk, after that.

They talk and talk, and they finish their drinks and the food comes and they eat and then they talk some more, and drink some more.

They talk about Facebook, which feels less like some ruined, ugly thing between them now and more like something they have together. Eduardo tells Mark about his work, the tech startups he’s invested in and the ones he’s considering, and Mark is impressed because Eduardo has seriously done his homework; so much so that he knows a lot of things Mark doesn’t.

They drink some more and the talking gets easier, turns personal. They ask about each other’s families, talk about hobbies (Mark has recently gotten back into fencing, which Eduardo thinks is fantastic; Eduardo has taken up running, which Mark thinks is horrifying). They talk about Chris and Dustin, and Mark tells Eduardo why Chris moved back to California, which makes him smile like maybe he knows something Mark doesn’t, but Mark doesn’t get a chance to ask because, “Do I want to know what you were doing last night that you showed up drunk this morning?” Eduardo asks—and, well.

There is that.

Mark makes up some bullshit about a birthday party because he’s not quite ready, yet, to go there.

Eduardo doesn’t push him. He starts talking about something else, beginning to tell a story, and Mark really, really wants to listen but it’s getting progressively more difficult, because he keeps staring at Eduardo’s mouth. When Eduardo pauses for a breath, he sips his wine and then licks his lips entirely too slowly, and Mark watches him do it and thinks about kissing him, about what it would be like.

He suspects it would be really good.

He seriously can’t stop staring at Eduardo’s lips.

The alcohol is not helping, probably.

It’s after midnight when they both look up and realize they’re the only ones left in the restaurant, which technically closed ten minutes ago. Eduardo calls his car service, Mark leaves a stupidly large tip for their waiter by way of apology and they walk out together, stand on the curb and wait for the car to get there. Eduardo asks if Mark is okay to drive, all knit brows and concern, and Mark rolls his eyes but really the fussing makes him feel sort of blurry and warm, because it is so familiar and _god he’s missed Eduardo._

“Come over tomorrow,” Mark says, not daring to let himself think about it. “In the morning, before you leave. I’ll make breakfast.”

Eduardo smiles at him, tired but real, and it’s like being wrapped up in some warm, quiet place Mark never wants to leave. “You don’t cook.”

“I cook sometimes,” protests Mark, who doesn’t, at all, ever. He’s watched Chris make pancakes on a fairly regular basis, though, in the mornings after their newly-reinstated Saturday night video game marathons. And, okay, it looks like fucking _alchemy,_ but Mark’s pretty sure it can’t actually be all that difficult.

Even Dustin can manage scrambled eggs, for fuck’s sake.

“Mark, I’ve seen you render _cereal_ inedible. You don’t even eat breakfast.”

“I’ll make an exception.”

“You also don’t make exceptions.”

“Well, I’m making one now. For you,” Mark adds, forcing himself to meet Eduardo’s eyes when he says it. “Things change, Wardo, okay?”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.” Eduardo watches him thoughtfully for a minute, then nods like he’s made up his mind about something. “Okay. I’ll come over, but I’m making breakfast. Deal?”

“Deal,” Mark agrees, suddenly stupidly happy.

*

The next morning, Mark gets up early enough to shower before Eduardo is supposed to show up. He remembers to brush his teeth, towels some of the water from his damp curls so they don’t dry in the way that makes Chris roll his eyes in despair when Mark walks into the office, and actually looks at the t-shirt he chooses before he pulling it over his head. (Plain blue. Mark’s mom claims this brings out his eyes, which is apparently a good thing.)

Mark considers trying to set up the kitchen, but he can’t guess at what sorts of things Eduardo might need to cook whatever breakfast he’s planning, so Mark contents himself with reviewing the cupboards, reminding himself where he keeps the various things he never uses. His housekeeper came yesterday, so the rest of the house is pretty much spotless; even his bedroom doesn’t seem to be any worse for wear after the Jameson episode.

Not that Eduardo is going to be seeing his bedroom any time soon.

Or, like, _ever._

(Mark puts away the stack of deposition transcripts and DVDs, just in case.)

Eduardo shows up a little after nine, and he still looks tired and pretty seriously jet-lagged, but he also looks happy to see Mark. He’s carrying a couple of bags of groceries from the market up the street, which Mark has to admit was good foresight on Eduardo’s part, because on closer inspection it turns out that the only non-expired edible item in Mark’s refrigerator is a package of American cheese slices (which apparently have such a long shelf life because they are mostly chemicals).

“Things change, hm?” says Eduardo, grinning, but he says it like maybe it’s not such a bad thing if some things are still the same.

Eduardo won’t let him help because food in the preparation stages tends to preemptively catch on fire when it sees Mark coming, so Mark sits on a stool at the island and watches while Eduardo pours eggs and green peppers and mushrooms and shredded cheese (real cheese) into skillets, then slices fresh fruit while the omelettes cook. He also makes fresh-squeezed orange juice, because apparently Eduardo is a person who squeezes the juice from oranges and drinks it, which is so unnecessary. Mark tells him so, and Eduardo just laughs and pours him a glass and tells him to _shut up and try it,_ and Mark takes a sip and has to admit that it is really, really good. As is the rest of breakfast, which takes them a long time to eat because they talk so much.

"I wasn’t drunk because of a birthday party,” Mark says abruptly, and Eduardo sets his glass down, gives Mark a careful look and says, “I kind of figured.”

Mark tells him the truth then, although he skims quickly through the part about the transcripts and the tapes because Eduardo looks so sad when Mark talks about that, and he leaves out the love thing entirely because that is maybe not a conversation they should have when they’re still just learning to be around each other again, and particularly not when Eduardo has to get on a plane and fly back to Singapore in two hours.

Eduardo listens, and he doesn’t say much while Mark is talking, but when Mark finishes Eduardo reaches across the table and touches his arm, very gently, then pulls back and says, “I was freaking out, too.”

“Are you still?”

“No.”

“What are you, then?” Mark wants to know, which is honestly the closest he can bring himself to asking _how do you feel about all of this?_

“Late,” Eduardo says, glancing at his watch. “I’m going to miss my flight if I don’t get out of here in the next five minutes.”

 _So miss it,_ Mark thinks, _just stay,_ but that is also probably not a conversation they need to be having right now.

He walks Eduardo to the door and they stand there really awkwardly for a couple of seconds because a handshake would be stupid but a hug might be too much, and Mark is not exactly big on hugging, anyway, although right now he thinks it would be best to avoid the hug for an entirely different reason, which is that he’s not sure he can be that close to Eduardo without kissing him.

He is still not sure how he feels about that.

So they don’t shake hands and they don’t hug, but they do agree to talk soon. Eduardo gives Mark his business card with a cell phone number and his address in Singapore scrawled on the back, and then he goes, although he does turn to smile and wave one more time before he gets in the car and disappears behind tinted glass.

Mark feels out of sorts after he’s gone, restless and sort of unsettled. He drives to the office even though it’s a Saturday, hoping to lose himself in code, but he can’t seem to focus or get anything done. Instead, he finds himself sitting in his office, replaying their goodbye over and over again in his head.

It feels like a badly-placed ellipsis between them, he thinks. An open parenthesis. Too much left unsaid, uncertain, unknown.

He thinks maybe he should have said something, though he can’t honestly imagine how he would have begun that conversation. _Hey, Wardo? Were you in love with me back then? More to the point, now that we’ve been friends again for five minutes, do you think you still could be?_

Mark thinks not.

He stares at the phone number on the back of the card for a while before he gets his own phone out, and types a quick text message.

_**To** : Eduardo Saverin  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg_

_have a safe flight._

The reply is almost immediate.

_**To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin_

_:)_

Mark should have just kissed him, probably.

*

There are a lot of text messages back and forth over the next few days.

E-mails, too.

Even Facebook messages—because now, finally, after five years, they are Facebook friends again.

Mark has a pathological hatred of talking on the phone, but Eduardo calls one night just as Mark’s getting into bed (it’s noon on the other side of the world), and it turns out there are worse ways to end the day than listening to Eduardo bitch about how it’s been raining for three days straight and he’s still jet-lagged after a week.

Mark seriously cannot stop smiling. The Facebook staff is uniformly curious about the source of his good mood.

“About half of them think it has something to do with Eduardo,” Jess tells Mark, a little guiltily.

“What about the other half?”

“They think you’re on drugs.”

Chris keeps giving him knowing looks and Dustin will not leave him alone for ten seconds at a time.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Dustin Moskovitz  
 **Subject** : just get on a plane already.

even google thinks you’re an idiot.

**To** : Dustin Moskovitz  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : you’re fired.

see subject.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Chris Hughes  
 **Subject** : HR just called.

I’ve been asked to inform you that this is the eighth time you’ve fired Dustin in two months and unless you intend to stick to it for more than three hours this time, they would really prefer to skip the paperwork.

 **To** : Chris Hughes  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : fine.

tell your boyfriend to keep his unsolicited opinions to himself.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Chris Hughes  
 **Subject** : I suppose I could gag him.

Prior experience suggests he might enjoy that, actually.

 **To** : Chris Hughes  
 **From** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **Subject** : i need brain bleach.

now you’re both fired.

Mark and Eduardo talk a lot, which Mark decides is fine because they are making up for five years of not talking. The phone calls happen, more nights than not. They talk about their days, mostly, and work, and sometimes other things, but Mark is mostly preoccupied with the things they don’t talk about, like love.

Mark has never been in love and the longest of his few-and-far-between relationships lasted a grand total of two months, so he doesn’t exactly have a vast and varied frame of reference for any of this, but he thinks that if he were going to be in love with anyone, it would probably be Eduardo, because Eduardo was (and is becoming, again) the most important person in his life once, and Mark has never really felt like that about anyone else.

Dustin and Chris are his best friends. Like family, really.

He loves them, of course.

His parents and his sisters, too.

Eduardo is different, though, in a way that makes Mark’s stomach twist and his heart do weird things and then there is the fucking _smiling,_ which he still cannot seem to stop doing. He’s different in the way that makes five-minute phone calls seem impossibly short and two-hour calls not long enough. He’s different in that he always seems to understand what Mark is trying to say, despite the fact that Mark is not and has never been good with words (though Eduardo tells him he’s better at that, now). He’s different in the way that puts Mark somewhere between _calm_ and _happy_ and _right_ when he hangs up the phone or gets an e-mail or re-reads a text message from Eduardo for the hundredth time.

Eduardo is things to Mark that no one else has ever been, maybe ever will be.

It feels like it’s happening really fast and also like it’s taken a ridiculously long time.

*

There’s the sex thing, too, which is more confusing.

“Dustin,” Mark says one afternoon, about a week after he did not actually fire either Dustin or Chris.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Dustin says, without looking up. He’s constructing a complicated-looking Lego spaceship, which he’s been working on at his desk intermittently for about a week. Mark is not bothered by this. He’s seen enough results to remain fairly certain that Dustin actually _works,_ sometimes, though he never seems to witness it happening.

“It’s about sex.”

“Go for it.” Dustin shrugs, unfazed. “Is it a technical question, though? Because in that case, you should probably ask Chris. He’s been sucking dick a lot longer than I have.”

 _“Jesus,”_ says Mark, regretting everything.

“It’s not technical?”

“No,” Mark says vehemently, trying very hard not to _picture things,_ mostly failing, and feeling the color spread up his throat and into his cheeks. “Christ, Dustin.”

“Sorry.” Dustin grins at him. “I’ll make a note to be less candid in the future.”

“I’d settle for less _graphic,”_ Mark says darkly.

“Fair enough. What’s up?”

“Were there—I mean, did you—” Mark can’t find the right words, can feel himself turning a brighter shade of red, hates everything. “Had you ever—with other guys? Before Chris?”

“A couple of times, yeah.”

“When?” Mark is incredulous, as this is the first he’s hearing about it.

“Right after we moved out here.” Dustin catches Mark’s expression and laughs, open and easy. “Would you quit looking at me like that? I didn’t tell you about most of the girls I hooked up with back then, either.”

Mark frowns, considering this. “So you’re what—bisexual?”

“I guess.” Dustin looks thoughtful. “I don’t really worry about it, though. I realize that’s probably not the most politically correct thing, but you love who you love, right? I love Chris, and—I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter to me what you call it.”

“Chris is not a sexual orientation,” Mark says stubbornly, though he can see Dustin’s point.

“Maybe not, but he totally should be.”

“This is unhelpful,” Mark decides, and leaves before Dustin has a chance to continue with that train of thought.

He tries Chris next, thinking it can’t possibly be worse.

“How do you know you’re gay?” Mark asks, perched on the edge of Chris’s desk, thankful when Chris doesn’t bat an eyelash.

“The same way I know the earth is round, grass is green, and the sky is blue?” Chris shrugs, doesn’t even bother to look away from his computer screen.

“The sky is colorless,” Mark says pointlessly, which earns him a sideways glare.

“You know what I meant. Why the interest, as if I didn’t already know?”

“I’m thinking about taking a few days and flying to Singapore.”

“Mark Zuckerberg.” Chris pulls back from his desk, swivels his chair to smile at Mark, who promptly averts his eyes and turns red all over again. “Are you planning a sweeping romantic gesture?”

“I just—I want to be sure that when I get there, I’ll be able to do what I think I want to do.” Mark stares intently at the floor. “I think I should have kissed him.”

“I concur, but showing up on his doorstep halfway around the world will make a much better story ten years from now, so don’t sweat it too much.” Chris studies Mark, his expression a combination of knowing and amusement. “Think about when he was here, Mark. Did you want to kiss him then?”

Mark thinks about dinner: the easy glow of Eduardo’s smile in the low light of the restaurant, the way his head fell back when he laughed, the slight flush of color in his cheeks from the alcohol. The way he’d licked the wine from his lips so slowly it almost seemed deliberate, making Mark think about what it would be like to kiss him, what those lips would taste like, what they would look like doing other things—

When he looks up, Chris is grinning like the cat that got the cream, which is—not a metaphor Mark wants to explore too carefully.

“You wanted to do more than kiss him, I take it.”

“Fuck off,” Mark suggests.

Chris just shrugs, still smiling. “Welcome to the dark side.”

“Is that a euphemism?” Dustin inquires, appearing over Mark’s shoulder.

“I hate you,” Mark tells him, because, _really._

*

He sends Eduardo a text message later that afternoon.

 _ **To** : Eduardo Saverin  
_ _**From** : Mark Zuckerberg_

_it’s inconvenient that you live on the other side of the world._

The reply comes a few minutes later, although it is the middle of the night in Singapore. Mark is sitting in his office clicking through flight information, not really decided yet, just looking, when his phone buzzes softly.

_**To** : Mark Zuckerberg  
 **From** : Eduardo Saverin_

_I miss you, too._

He stares at the message for a long time.

Mark is not the type to hesitate, really. He makes the interns plaster those “Move Fast and Break Things” signs all over the place for a reason. Mark tends to jump in with both feet and figure the rest out once he’s in it. He’s learned to swim in a lot of deep ends, and he’s really not the sort of person who waits around for signs, but if he were?

This is probably the closest he’ll ever get.

Mark chooses a flight, and books it. Arranges for a hotel room, just in case. He calls Jess and instructs her to cancel his Thursday and Friday meetings, then opens his e-mail client.

 **To:** Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz  
 ** **From:**** Mark Zuckerberg  
 ** ** **Subject:****** i’ll be back on monday.

try not to crash the servers or start any wars while i’m gone.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz  
 **From** : Chris Hughes  
 **Subject** : Have a safe trip.  
  
Say hi to Wardo for me.

 **To** : Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes  
 **From** : Dustin Moskovitz  
 **Subject** : FUCKING FINALLY  
  
LET’S GO GET THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF US BY LOVE!!!!

*

Mark visited Singapore several times a couple of years ago, when Facebook’s Asia offices were getting up and running. He’s never admitted it to anyone (and probably never will), but he used to watch the runway lights rushing up to meet the plane as it landed, then squeeze his eyes shut, concentrating as hard as he possibly could, and think: _Wardo, I’m here._ Which was stupid, because Eduardo hadn’t been speaking to him then, and would probably have continued refusing to speak to him even if Mark had suddenly developed actual psychic abilities.  
  
Mark never really stopped hoping, though.  
  
He’s as nervous now as he’s ever been, and this time when the plane touches down with a gentle _bump,_ Mark finds he can’t really think much of anything. He’s too busy clenching his teeth to stop his stomach from climbing out through his throat, because this feels a whole lot crazier on the ground in Singapore than it did back in Palo Alto.

The reality, Mark thinks, is that he’s just flown halfway around the world based on a few hours in Eduardo’s company, on the very slight chance that something that was true five years ago might somehow still be true. It’s not much more than a guess, really. An insane, wild hope.

Mark likes logic and facts and evidence, preferably in overwhelming quantities. This is not a thing that he does, this _taking chances_ thing, except that apparently it is, because he suddenly finds himself sitting in the back of a car on a busy street in downtown Singapore, staring up at the very, very tall, ultra-modern building in which Eduardo lives.

There’s a concierge. Of course there is. Mark gives him his name, and listens to the long silence on the other end of the line when the concierge calls to tell Eduardo that he’s extremely sorry to disturb him so late, but there’s a Mr. Zuckerberg here to see him.

Eduardo lives on the sixty-seventh floor, which means a very long elevator ride, during which Mark changes his mind about all of this at least thirty times in rapid succession, but it’s really a little late for that now.

Then he’s standing at Eduardo’s door, which opens just as Mark is lifting his hand to knock, and there’s Eduardo in jeans and a t-shirt, which is crazy because that _never happens,_ although it vaguely registers with Mark that it definitely should happen a lot more often, because Eduardo in jeans and a t-shirt is really, really sexy. He keeps blinking and his hair is everywhere and he very clearly just rolled out of bed and pulled on the first thing he could find. He’s looking at Mark like he doesn’t quite believe he’s real.

“Hi,” Mark says.

“Hi,” Eduardo says a little incredulously, stepping to the side so Mark can come inside, pushing the door closed behind him. “What are you—”

Mark steps close to him then, says _Wardo_ very softly. He reaches out and strokes Eduardo’s cheek with two very tentative fingers, cups it gently, and Eduardo shuts up. He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t pull away either, which Mark decides to count as a good thing. He’s less sure what to do with the fact that Eduardo is honest-to-god _shaking_ under his touch.

“Wardo,” Mark says again, softer still. Lets the hand cupping Eduardo’s cheek slide to the back of his neck. Tugs him in, so gently. When he finally kisses Eduardo, it’s like nothing Mark expects and everything he wants, all at once. It feels new and weird and startling and strange, but it also feels really, really right, like maybe this is somewhere they’ve always been headed. Like something in Mark has always been trying to find its way here, right here, to this.

It only lasts a few seconds, but when Mark pulls back, everything about Eduardo’s face has changed. It’s like he’s lighting up from the inside as a slow smile finds its way to his lips, still trembling just the slightest bit. His eyes are soft and so bright, and when Mark looks into them he sees the thing he somehow, somehow missed all those years ago, for all that time. The thing he understands, now, is love.

 _“Mark,”_ Eduardo says, and it’s like coming home.

*


End file.
